The Similarities Between Halloween and Cyberattacks
One of the scariest things a business can face is a major cyber attack or data breach. Halloween is in less than a week and with that comes the close of National Cybersecurity Awareness Month. Though the month is over, businesses must still carry out safe cyber practices because with the current number of cyberattacks on businesses that occur daily, it is not a matter of if, but a matter of when. Halloween brings lots of scares but for one of our last Cybersecurity Awareness Month articles, we wanted to highlight some of the similarities between Halloween and cyberattacks.
Hackers are like guests at a Halloween masquerade ball.
It is commonplace around Halloween to have masquerade balls where everyone is wearing a mask to hide their identity. Like these ball guests, hackers like to hide their identities. They thrive on staying anonymous. Because of this, it may take months to find the identity of hackers who are responsible for major cyber-attacks.
Phishing attacks are the trick not the treat.
When kids go trick or treating, they always ask trick or treat. Unfortunately, when cybercriminals trick or treat with phishing, you will always get a trick. Phishing uses email or link trickery to convince the target to download an attachment that locks the device or installs malware. A more sinister version of phishing is whaling which targets a company’s high-ranking officials. To make your employees less vulnerable to phishing attack trickery, invest in cybersecurity awareness training.
The catastrophic damage cyberattacks can do is downright frightening.
The average cost of a major cyber attack in 2022 cost 9.5 million dollars. That is far scarier than any of the Halloween movies. Another scary cybersecurity stat is that the cost of cybercrime is expected to increase to 10.5 trillion annually by 2025. Ransomware attacks are by far the scariest. Ransomware locks a user’s computer that contains sensitive and valuable data.
The only way that data can be unlocked is to pay the hacker the ransom. This may work but there are no guarantees so the best way to keep your data safe is to invest in cloud technology where all of your data is backed up on a regular basis. If your business does fall victim to a ransomware attack, you can recover all of your data without having to give into the demands of the hacker.
Scary Cybersecurity Scenarios That Can Hurt Businesses
You have a firewall in place but there is no monitoring of it.
Even if you have a secure network firewall in place, if you can’t monitor it twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, then you still run the risk of experiencing a bad cybersecurity nightmare. The good news is that this is where managed service providers can help. When hiring a managed service provider like Tekscape, our technicians will provide you with twenty-four seven monitoring and support to match.
Passwords are being shared on a regular basis.
In a survey conducted by Beyond Identity, half the respondents said that they regularly share passwords. To protect company data, make sure employees have separate user accounts with strong passwords. Implement multi factor authentication requirements and remind employees to change passwords every 90 days.
There is no data backup in place in case of a disaster.
With the amount of ransomware attacks that occur daily, having a way to backup data regularly is imperative or your business may find itself in a very scary situation. Cloud backup is usually the best option because not only does it cover data loss from cyber breaches, but it also protects against data loss from natural disasters such as fires and floods.
Staff are working without training in safe cybersecurity practices.
Many business owners assume that their staff understand the best practices for cybersecurity. Unfortunately, taking this information for granted is a scary mistake. Never assume that your team knows how to completely stay cyber safe. Take the initiative to create and document security practices. These practices should include internet usage policies and email usage policies. You will also want to provide continuing education for your team with the latest information on current cybersecurity threats.
Tekscape can help manage your cybersecurity no matter where your team works. We can arm your business with managed security to keep data safe. Protect your company’s network, applications, and devices all-in-one place. Understand your digital landscape with the proper tools and hardware that will help reduce the risk of cyber-attacks. Make data-driven decisions and optimize your internal resources to navigate along your security landscape.
Tekscape is committed to providing proactive, responsive, and timely managed IT services support for our clients. We start with our comprehensive new client onboarding process designed to get your business up-and-running on our monitoring and management tools with as little disruption as possible. Contact us today to learn more about working with a nationally recognized managed service provider.
